One For The Road

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

It was August 31, 2016 (Stephanie's birthday). We had just finished our fantasy football draft. Mike Matney sent me an amazing song.. "Ether" by Bloody Hammers, and I think it might have been the 2nd time he'd sent it to me. Mike is amazing, and has turned me onto quite a few new bands. "Ether" is fantastic, by the way, as is a lot of their other stuff.

Saw them live in October, 2016. They have a ton of history, and have also entangled themselves within a lot of mystery surrounding band members' identities, and such.. But their music is so good that the negative publicity is worthless. They've toured the world, drawn millions of fans, and are currently venturing out on a tour along with IRON MAIDEN.

"Wyoming, the nation's lowest population state, has just over 560,000 people. Those people get three electoral votes, or one per 186,000 people. California, our most populous state, has more than 37 million people. Those Californians have 55 electoral votes, or one per 670,000 people. Comparatively, people in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as people in California. Put another way, if California had the same proportion of electoral votes per person as Wyoming, it would have about 200 electoral votes." (Source)

Yep, it's just simple math, people. Each state's electoral vote total needs to be proportional to the population of each state. That was the intention some 229 years ago, anyway. However the simple fact that each state (regardless of population) has exactly two senators, and that the number TWO helps to determine the number of electoral college votes for each state, is absurd!

So here's the fix:Click it to enlarge!

This is Mine (Data from Wikipedia)

This needs to be edited before every election. I'm pretty sure the government has several statisticians employed, who can accurately project the population growth of each state based on the last census each time. It's not that difficult.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

I've been wanting to write this article for many years now, but for some reason, I simply haven't taken the time. But there's no reason why I can't take 30 minutes and get it done! By the way.. Absolutely no offense whatsoever is intended to Bill Schoening! Bill does such a fantastic job that I would rather mute the TV whenever there's no Bill Land & Sean Elliott Spurs' TV broadcast, and listen to Bill, than most of the scrubs we're "forced" to listen to on ESPN & TNT.

A lot of people in my circle of NBA basketball fans absolutely cannot stand the NBA announcing trio of Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson, and Mike Breen, who call games for ESPN & ABC. There are also a lot of people who like them, and surely a ton who don't care. I have written about my opinion of these three before! But this post isn't directed at the blabbering of both Van Gundy and Jackson, as it is towards Mike Breen.

Of the three Mike Breen is the one guy who actually does a halfway decent job calling the play-by-play. While JVG and Jackson continue to argue over irrelevant ideas, and disregard the fact that the fans are listening to their banter, while trying to FOLLOW a game they're interested in, they haven't a clue that they aren't doing the job they've been hired for. As an aside -- Does ESPN get (or acknowledge) any customer feedback in this regard??

OK OK, I said this post wasn't about how much I can't stand Van Gundy & Jackson. This post is to give some long-overdue credit to a guy who used to call Spurs' games back in the day. And also to let Mike Breen know that, although he does a "decent" job as a play-by-play basketball announcer (and bonus points for enduring JVG & Jackson), he needs to know something he probably doesn't know.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Exactly why I won't ever identify with the GOP, I know. Why I won't ever classify myself as a Democrat, I also know, but there are a lot of things I just flat-out don't understand.

Why would anyone object to a business raising their minimum wage? Why is that a bad thing - in and of itself? Economists will prove you wrong all day, and as a math major, I know for a fact, when accounting for inflation, the wages these days are not proportional to the way they used to be. Especially when you also add in the fact that most of these people, who are earning a minimum wage, are also paying an increasingly insane amount of money for a freaking education.

Why is it such a popular opinion that "Planned Parenthood = Abortions." Totally understood that abortion is MOSTLY wrong, but ----> They do so much more than that. And most of those who have had the opinion that abortion might be the right (and/or only) decision for them, would have NO other option, if not for these places to HELP to educate them to make the correct decision. When you make so many options illegal, the people will still do what they have to do to: (1) get a "black-market" abortion, (2) deposit their baby at a hospital, (3) try to "sell their baby."

It's exactly correlated with the GOP stance on drugs. Continuing to fight an unwinnable war on drugs (since about 1980) is wasting tons of money, resources, and lives. The policy will never win. Go check out all the stats from Colorado and Washington, among others. Prescription medication deaths are down 25%, these states are making tons more money from taxing legal (and medical) marijuana. Crime is down in these states.... on and on...

And why is it that GOP-ers are SO critical of government spending, when it's Republicans who want to spend way, way too much money (that the gov't doesn't have) on "national security," "war," and "defense," while berating anyone who tries to RAISE money to do ANYTHING? Do I think Bernie Sanders is the ANSWER? Maybe. I would definitely vote for him JUST to make sure Hillary has no chance! Both Bill Clinton and Dubya could've heeded warnings they received prior to 9/11. They did not. And the concept of trying to promote the idea that our country was safer under GWB than we are today is absolutely absurd.

If you'd combine my stance on most issues, I'm a Centrist. All those political tests have told me so. The guns issue is the MOST centered of all of them for me. Neither side has the perfect argument, but both sides have a good one. But there is no reason why better gun laws aren't a good thing. If you want to buy 23 guns, fine. But if your history is such that you shouldn't be buying ONE, then absolutely - you're denied. Not only that, but I have an opinion that's pretty popular. When the 2nd amendment was written (1791), those guys wrote it without any idea that semi-automatic, nor automatic weapons would exist. Nor did they ever have any idea that rapid-fire, single trigger fire weapons would be causing so much harm in non-war situations. Not to mention the larger calibers of today. 1791! Come on, this shit needs to be technologically adjusted. That's 225 years for goodness sake! If you can provide an argument as to why YOU NEED in your home an AR15 with a 30-round mag -- as opposed to a shotgun or pistol with 7-8 rounds, I'd like to hear it.

Someone will undoubtedly rescind Obamacare, which wasn't good, and someone will retract that stupid deal with Iran. Someone is kicking ass right now. We all need to go vote for Bernie in primaries, so that Hillary has no chance.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Several DECADES ago, our government put their foot down, and decided to no longer allow cigarette advertisements on TV. None whatsoever.

So now that it's 2016, why in the hell do I have to watch commercials showing a guy explaining how much it sucks to live his life when he has a hole in his throat? I won't watch, but I also mute the TV, because the last thing anyone wants to hear is a guy having to hold a machine against his larynx to be able to talk, and I don't want to hear it. And it's not only him. This company has launched several anti-smoking advertisements recently, with a few different "victims". Some of them have recently died, and they are sure to let us know that.

Not only that, but now we also have to see tons of new anti-smoking commercials, such as these.

I'm a smoker, and I have been since I was about 21. Most of the past 23 years I enjoyed smoking a few cigarettes a day. Some of those days I smoke wayy tooo much. People enjoy smoking. Cigarettes.. Pipes.. Cigars.. Marijuana.... But I stray from the point.

I used to pay $3.25 for a pack of smokes back in the 90's. These days a pack is at least $6. Sometimes they're $7.50.

You're not allowed to advertise cigarette sales. Please stop advertising only the worst possible scenarios that result from smoking!

We've all been there. Standing in front of the spices in the grocery store.

Why is there no dried mushroom spice/flavor? I mean they can come up with a ton of different stuff, most of which most of us have never heard of. But mushrooms are delicious in everything from spaghetti, pizza, most other pastas, and a ton of other stuff, but we always have to buy mushrooms (which go bad quickly) for this addition. McDonalds even puts freeze-dried onions on some of their "fresh" burgers. Yeah.

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